Starship Asterisk*

I'd really like to have a commercial zapper! I would zap some of the commercials that I just can't stand so I could watch my favorite shows in piece. Some of the worst are the computer and the phone commercials! The insurance mayhem commercial is another one that I would zap!

orin stepanek wrote:I'd really like to have a commercial zapper! I would zap some of the commercials that I just can't stand so I could watch my favorite shows in piece. Some of the worst are the computer and the phone commercials! The insurance mayhem commercial is another one that I would zap! :roll:

My satellite TV box automatically skips over commercials. I use ad blocking software in my browser so that pages are commercial free. My ISP has good spam blocking tools, so I get almost none of that in my mail. I don't answer calls from blocked numbers.

I encounter so little advertising, I really don't always know what's happening in the commercial world. I see references to commercial products in blogs or cartoons, and have to look them up to see what they're about!

I envy you! I have cable and get all the commercials. They do have a Chanel that there is a repeat for missed shows. So far a I know these are free of commercials! Maybe I should watch day old shows!

Some of the "On Demand" rerun of TV shows do unfortunately still have commercials in the recording. Most allow you to FF through the breaks though some do not. If the show is really popular or the recording is viewed next day there might be commercials. Some have commercial breaks but only air 1 commercial. Look at the running time of the program. If it is a regular hour long program and the time says 56 or 58 minutes, there are commercials. If the time says 46 minutes, there are 4 breaks with 1 commercial each. If it says 42 or 44 minutes there probably aren't any commercials.

I upgraded our cable service to HD a couple of years ago, getting the ability to record programs in the bargain. Now I rarely watch anything live except a half hour of the morning news. For everything else I scan the listings on my favourite channels once a day and set the recordings that I want, then watch them whenever it's convenient for me, skipping through the commercials as I do so. I couldn't go back to live TV now. It's unwatchable!

Rob

I don't watch TV.

I watch very little, and now that Charter Cable decided to change PBS to digital, i watch TV a little lesser. And they didn't even reduce my bill at all The ::censored::

I watch TV! I'm 72 and I have to pace myself! It gives me a chance to catch up on the news and I like a couple of shows! I am at the computer a bit. The garden work is coming up and I have my projects! With my wife retired I don't cook much anymore; but I'm still the bottle and dishwasher!

Sometimes commercials are entertaining...

geckzilla wrote:I don't watch TV.

I was mostly off of TV at one time, but these days... some of the very best stories are found on TV, better in my opinion than the best of the movies (not that people are making all that many good movies these days). Really, what I'd call art of the highest quality- superior acting and story telling. There are a few TV shows that really floor me with the impact of their story lines, and I find myself thinking about them for days after they air.

(Disclaimer: I'm not talking about Two and a Half Men or Days of our Lives!)

Chris Peterson wrote:My satellite TV box automatically skips over commercials.

How does that work? The commercials are part of the broadcast signal. Do you just have dead air during that time? I know with some DVRs you can automatically skip the commercials, but that is a playback of a recorded show.

Don't get me wrong. I do watch TV shows but only if they are available through Netflix or some other cheap streaming alternative to TV. I can't stand the idea of paying for 1000 channels of crap just to have one channel that occasionally has a show worth watching.

bystander wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:My satellite TV box automatically skips over commercials.

How does that work? The commercials are part of the broadcast signal. Do you just have dead air during that time? I know with some DVRs you can automatically skip the commercials, but that is a playback of a recorded show.

The satellite box is a DVR. It only skips through the commercials once the show is recorded. I don't know for sure how they do it, but I suspect they manually (or semi-automatically) tag the commercial locations at their end and send that information in the digital stream.

geckzilla wrote:Don't get me wrong. I do watch TV shows but only if they are available through Netflix or some other cheap streaming alternative to TV. I can't stand the idea of paying for 1000 channels of crap just to have one channel that occasionally has a show worth watching.

Currently, there's enough quality content that I don't mind paying the satellite fee (although I have more channels locked out of the guide than not). Certainly, network streaming is an option, but for me it only recently became so, since only in the last year have I had Internet access that would allow for it (and even so, just barely). Also, where I live, there are no over-the-air TV or radio stations available at all, regardless of how big an antenna I might want to place. Astronomers could use my town to place a nice radio telescope, given the complete absence of interfering signals. So if I want any real-time content, satellite TV is the only option.

Years back when I had a TV, I used the commercial breaks for going to the bathroom, or get something to eat drink etc...

I dont like watching TV and I dont have one, it makes you depending on time when you like to watch something and have to wait till its aired but you
cant watch it at that time. But I miss having a bigger screen for watching DVDs or documentations.
A TV makes somehow passive while internet makes you choose and have more control.

German news channels, science, culture and history channels stream live in www and I can also watch the aired program later on demand.

All German shows are also with mostly one commercial be watched on demand, which is better than in TV with lots of commercials.

Turkish channels are also have live web stream, which is nice to watch something in my first mother tongue.

In Germany US or other states shows and movies are not possible to watch on demand in the channels webpages because of the copyrights.

But there are (not really legal) webpages where all kind of movies and tv shows are archived and are available in original language , with German subtitle and overvoice in German.

That way I can watch seasons of tv shows before they are aired in German TV and better: in English, I hate the bad German translations!